BOSTON & DAEJEON, South Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Orum Therapeutics announced today an oversubscribed $30 million Series B financing. New investors, IMM Investment, Smilegate Investment, KTB Network, and Stassets Investment, join existing investors, InterVest and KB Investment/Solidus Investment in the financing. The proceeds of the financing will be used to expand Oromab™, Orum’s proprietary cell-specific, cell-penetrating antibody platform technology that targets “undruggable” proteins and delivers a variety of therapeutic payloads. The company is applying the Oromab platform to discover and develop novel therapeutics for cancer and rare diseases, both internally and with partners. The financing will also further expand Orum’s R&D labs in Korea and Boston, where the company was recently accepted into a biotech incubator in Kendall Square, Cambridge.
“A large number of important therapeutic targets are currently considered ‘undruggable,’ making drug discovery for these targets technically challenging,” said Sung Joo Lee, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Orum Therapeutics. “By intracellular delivery of antibodies, our platform redefines what undruggable means.”
Using the Oromab platform, Orum builds antibodies that bind cell-specific receptors and are internalized through receptor-mediated endocytosis. With Orum’s proprietary design, these antibodies escape the early endosome into the cytosol. Once in the cytosol, the antibodies can be therapeutically active and directly target disease-causing proteins or deliver payloads. With the Oromab platform, Orum is exploring several therapeutic avenues: 1) inhibiting Ras and tumor-specific intracellular oncogenic drivers, 2) delivery of oligonucleotides or enzymes for cancer and rare diseases, and 3) targeted degradation of disease proteins.
“Orum’s cell-penetrating antibody platform is unique in that, it has the capacity to not only transform the landscape of druggable targets, but also overcome the limitation of cytosolic delivery of other therapeutic modalities,” said Peter Park, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Orum Therapeutics.
About Orum Therapeutics, Inc.
Orum Therapeutics is a private biotech company developing a new class of therapeutic antibodies targeting cytosolic proteins for unmet medical needs in cancer and rare diseases. Orum leverages its unique cell-penetrating antibody platform, called Oromab™ to inhibit drug targets, previously undruggable by small molecules or current antibody therapeutics. In contrast to other approaches, Orum’s antibody platform can intracellularly deliver an active antibody therapeutic or payload, is easily adaptable to target different cell types and intracellular proteins, and does not require chemical modification. For more information, please visit www.orumrx.com.
